Tea Cups
by Sunlight through Leaves
Summary: Despite a good omen, Iruka's struck by a run of what seems like exceptionally bad luck. Kakairu


Very short oneshot inspired by an image from a friend on DA (search for 'Kakairu tea cup' to see the image - it's the first one).

OOOOOOOO

Iruka groaned and dug his fingers into his pillow, hoping that by sheer will alone, he could move time back and gain another hour of sleep. He should have known that pulling double shifts at the mission desk would catch up to him eventually, but he'd needed the money.

He sat up slowly, bashing the alarm into silence, and stumbled down the hall into the kitchen. He'd intended to get groceries yesterday, but had gotten home long after the store closed, so he wasn't holding out much hope for anything edible as he pulled the door of the fridge open.

Empty.

So were most of his cupboards, save for a couple of boxes of tea.

Iruka dug the heel of his hand into his eye to clear the fog of sleep that continued to creep over him. "I guess that'll have to do."

He started the water boiling and returned to his room in hopes of finding at least one set of uniform pants and shirt that were decently clean – or at least passed the smell test. He was beginning to wonder if five hours of time off work wasn't enough, but the whistling of the kettle brought him out of his musing, and he left to investigate what was probably going to turn out to be a disappointing breakfast.

He let out a sharp startled yelp and almost dropped the kettle onto his foot when his alarm resumed it's maniacal beeping.

"I should really turn that down." Iruka sighed. If he could hear it from all the way down the hall, he was fairly certain it was transmitting through the walls. He paused long enough to fill the cup and drop a tea ball into it before traipsing down the hall to silence his alarm.

The faintly glowing lights on his clock informed him that he had barely ten minutes to be at the Academy.

"How is it so late?" He scrambled back through the kitchen, hopping as he hauled his shoes on, and snagged the tea as he passed. He almost swallowed it in one gulp, but stopped with the edge just against his lips. A single tea leaf hovered vertically in the center of the liquid.

" Well, I can't complain about that; I could really use some good luck right now."

OOOOOOOO

Iruka braced himself high in the tree and watched his students bounce back and forth between the branches. So far his good luck hadn't managed to rear its ugly head. He'd arrived at school fifteen minutes late to find his classroom in ruins. The lesson plan he'd intended to teach involved a blackboard that wasn't in fifteen different sections on the floor. A few shouted words drove the kids out to the forest, but being able to run around outside seemed like more of a reward than a punishment, so they'd been pushing their luck ever since class started. Konohamaru and his group had taken to angling themselves in order to run into the other students as they leapt from branch to branch, and while Iruka was impressed by their aim and timing, he was getting a little sick of springing to the rescue every time one of the pre-genins fell out of the tree.

An ear-piercing scream got his attention just in time to see Hyuuga Hanabi flying at him, arms outstretched. He'd learned over the years that, when in trouble, most of the Hyuuga children had a nasty habit of activating their techniques without thinking and destroying whatever they landed on.

Hanabi made a desperate grab for his ankle as she flew by, and Iruka bit back a cry of pain as her fingers instinctively found the chakra points on either side of his Achilles tendon. Off-balance and injured, Iruka's knees buckled and he tumbled off the branch, crashing through the undergrowth as his body surrendered to gravity.

OOOOOOOOO

He'd been staring at the same page for what seemed like a minor eternity. He should have been at the bridge a half an hour ago, but his team would just have to survive through another lesson in waiting. He was busying trying to puzzle through the newest conundrum that had invaded his life.

It had started as a ploy to get back at the chuunin for questioning him before the chuunin exam. He'd stolen all of Iruka's clothes and replaced them with Gai's green spandex. The memories of Gai's sobbing declarations of Iruka's overwhelming youthful beauty when he and his team had discovered the chuunin still made him laugh out loud.

But the fact that Iruka had just calmly straightened the stack of paperwork in front of him, looked Gai in the eye, and informed him that, if the posing continued, Gai's shoulders were going to be shortly missing his head had caught him by surprise. Kakashi rubbed his hand across the back of his head, scratching idly at his hair. On closer examination, Iruka was not at all what he expected.

And he had no idea what to make of that.

Even less of an idea of how to deal with the rising urge to follow the other man around and the weird tightness across his chest every time he actually came face to face with the chuunin.

A sudden commotion directly above him brought his attention back to the present.

The absolute last thing he expected was to have the object of his fixation to drop into his lap.

Literally.

"K-K-Kakashi-san." Iruka flushed darkly and scrambled to get his limbs untangled from Kakashi's.

They were almost immediately surrounded by a collection of mini-nins who gaped and giggled and pointed.

Iruka finally sorted his feet out from Kakashi's and tried to stand, only to drop instantly back to his knees when his ankle refused to support him. The fact that he couldn't feel anything from his shin down probably wasn't a very good sign either. "Home!" He hollered at his class. "Go home, practice your henge's. There'll be a test tomorrow!"

Several of the kids leaned together and whispered to each other, still eyeing their teacher who was kneeling where he fell – between Kakashi's legs.

The blush across Iruka's cheeks deepened. "Go!"

"Are you alright, Iruka-san?" Kakashi extricated himself. The chuunin looked like he was on the verge of exploding.

"Fine." Iruka snarled as he rose to his feet, balancing carefully on his good ankle. "I'm already covered in bruises from saving them, and now I'm going to have to limp all the way home because Hanabi-chan just about took my foot off."

Kakashi blinked stupidly at the seething chuunin as Iruka pulled his vest straight and started to limp off in the direction of the village. A slow grin stretched his mask as he cast a silent 'thank you' up to the powers that be. He'd been wracking his brain in order to come up with an excuse to approach the other man before this. He stood, took a couple of quick steps to catch up with him, wrapped an arm around Iruka's waist, ignoring the spluttering coming from the chuunin's mouth, and draped Iruka's arm over his shoulder.

"Kakashi-san? Um…what…?"

"Maa, Iruka-san, what kind of fellow shinobi would I be if I left you high and dry?"

Iruka limped alongside the jounin, trying not to feel like a complete moron. _What kind of shinobi gets taken out by his ten-year-old student? _Kakashi's arm tightened around his waist, and Iruka tried to ignore the length of body pressed up against his side. Kakashi was practically carrying him, but his ankle still throbbed. As much as he hated to admit it, he probably would not have been able to make it home on his own, and as embarrassing as it was having a jounin support him, collapsing in the middle of the street halfway back would have been even worse.

"It's a left here." Iruka muttered as they reached the first turn.

_Oops. _Kakashi mentally smacked himself upside the head. _I already know where you live, Iruka-san. But I probably shouldn't admit that to you. You'd probably be able to put two and two together and figure out that I'm responsible for your foray into green spandex._ "Ah, and what next?"

Iruka cast him a slightly suspicious look, but directed him the rest of the way. When they reached the chuunin's apartment door, Iruka braced himself on the doorframe and attempted to pull away from Kakashi's grip. "This is fine, Kakashi-san. I can manage from here."

"What if you collapse while you're trying to get the door open? I would never be able to live with myself."

Iruka bristled, "I would not collapse from this!" But he seemed to recognize a loosing battle when he ran into one, and unlocked his door.

Kakashi toed off his shoes as he stepped into Iruka's apartment and hung onto Iruka's forearms as the chuunin stepped out of his.

"This really isn't necessary, Kakashi-san." Iruka protested as Kakashi helped him into the living room and lowered him onto the floor. "You can… Where are you going?" He asked as Kakashi headed in the direction of the kitchen, not the door.

"I think we could both use some tea."

"We…?" Iruka raised an eyebrow.

Kakashi leaned around the doorframe and made a show of rubbing the back of his neck and rolling his shoulders back and forth. "Well, something did fall on me today."

Iruka flushed and dropped his eyes.

Kakashi parked himself next to Iruka and set the cups on the table between them.

The chuunin wrapped his hands around the steaming mug. "Thank you, Kakashi-san. For the tea and for helping me. And…I'm sorry…about falling on you."

Kakashi stared down into the tea, at a loss for what to say. "Ah, Iruka-san, look. The tea leaf's floating upright."

Iruka snorted as he took a sip of his drink. _Good luck, my ass. This has been a horrible day. I was late, injured, and had to be carried home by Kakashi-san – as if I didn't look like enough of a weakling to him._ "I don't believe in that superstitious nonsense."

"I think I'd better." Kakashi hooked his finger under his mask. _This is probably a really bad idea, but it might be my only chance._

"Why?" Iruka's brow furrowed as he met Kakashi's gaze.

"Maybe with some good luck, I might not get slapped for this." Kakashi pulled his mask down, caught Iruka's chin and pressed his lips gently against the chuunin's.

Iruka's eyes widened to impossible proportions for a heartbeat and slowly slid closed.

Kakashi pulled back and smiled softly when he saw the faint blush painted high across Iruka's cheeks.

"W…what was that for?" Iruka scrubbed furiously at his cheeks, as if that could remove the blush from them.

"Maa, Iruka-san, don't you know what kissing is usually reserved for?" Kakashi grinned at the squirming chuunin.

"Of course I know…" Iruka spluttered and trailed off.

"Well, on that note," Kakashi stood and pulled his mask back over his face. "I've probably kept my team waiting long enough."

"Wha..?"

"Mind if I stop in for tea tomorrow, Iruka-san?" Kakashi crouched on the windowsill and looked back at him.

"Um…I…guess…I"

"Then I will see you later." Kakashi vanished from the window and reappeared directly in front of him. The jounin planted a sound kiss on his lips and disappeared entirely.

Iruka remained frozen in place in the center of the floor of his living room, a look of disbelief plastered across his face until it degraded into dark fury. "That's IT?!"

OOOOOOO

Thanks for reading!


End file.
